Thank you to all of my amazing reviewers! I own nothing, except Christina. Enjoy!

A few sketches later, there was a knock at my door. I set down the sketchbook and pencil and walked over to the door. I opened it up and the figure from my drawings stood there before me.

"Are you ready to go down for dinner, Christina?"

"Yes, Sebastian, I am."

I was just turning around to close the door to my room when I felt a warm hand on the back of my neck. I shivered. "What are you doing?"

"It wouldn't be proper for a young lady to go to supper with her dress buttons undone." He quickly fastened the last three buttons of my dress before turning me around to face him. "Would it?"

"No, I suppose that it wouldn't. I had planned on getting help with those buttons because I couldn't reach them, but the thought slipped my mind."

"I see madam. Shall we go now?"

"Yes, we shall."

He held out his arm for me which I graciously took. He led me through the many hallways and down the main staircase As we neared the bottom, two young men and a girl about my age walked out to the beginning of the staircase.

"Christina, these are your new coworkers." He gestured to the shorter boy with blonde hair and a straw hat around his neck, "this is Finny." Then he motioned to the taller boy with blondish brown hair, "This is Bardroy." Lastly he gestured to the girl. She had auburn hair and large, thick glasses on, "And this is Maylene. You will be working with her most."

"Hello, Finny, Bardroy, Maylene. My name is Christina. It's nice to meet you."

Maylene spoke first, "It's nice to meet you too. It'll be so nice to have another girl around here!" Then she ran up to me and embraced me into a tight hug. I flinched a bit because of the pressure on my arm, but quickly hugged her back.

Sebastian cleared his throat and Maylene quickly released me and stepped back. "I'm sorry Christina, that was a little out of line for me."

"It's fine."

Finny spoke up before she could speak again. "It's nice to see a new face around here, Christina."

"Thank you."

"Do you like birds," he asked, blushing lightly, "Sorry, that was an odd question, you don-"

"Yes Finny, I do like birds. I don't mind odd questions either," I replied with a smile and a small laugh.

He laughed as well and gave me a big grin.

Bardroy let out a small laugh before saying that it was nice to meet me before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. Sebastian reached over and pulled it out of his mouth and made it disappear somehow before speaking. "It is rude to perform such behaviors in front of people you are barely acquainted with."

I spoke up to defend him. "It's fine Sebastian, it doesn't bother me."

Sebastian just sighed and shook his head, exasperated. "Christina, please excuse me. I'm going to go finish the dinner preparations. I'm going to leave you with these three, and allow you to get better acquainted."

"Yes Sebastian, thank you."

He nodded before departing.

As soon as Sebastian left, Bardroy pulled out a new cigarette and lit it.

"You didn't have to do that, you know Christina," Bardroy spoke up.

"It's fine, honestly, and please call me Christi."

"Alright. Then you call me Bard."

"Alright, Bard, do you have another one of those?"

He pulled out another cigarette and handed it to me. I placed it in my mouth and he lit it with his lighter. I took a deep drag before exhaling. "It's been a long time since I've had one of these. They're American, right?"

"Yeah. You're not so prim and proper after all, huh?"

"Most definitely not. I don't smoke a lot, but sometimes, you just need a drag."

He laughed. "I know what you mean."

I let out a small chuckle before taking another drag off of the cigarette. There was a long pause before he spoke up again. By this time, the others had wandered off to other parts of the room.

"What brings you to the Phantomhive manor?"

"What do you mean? I'm here as a new maid."

"I know that, but we all have our back stories." He gestured to the other servants, "Something happened and Sebastian came along and got us all out of an unpleasant lifestyle, what's your back story?"

My mind and body immediately shut down. I moved my hands up to cover my arms and to try and soothe their shaking. My eyes immediately went downcast and my mind went blank. When I spoke, my voice was shaky and uneven. "I-I'd rather not talk about it."

Bard noticed the change. I turned away and walked from him. "Wait, Christi! Come back! I'm sorry if I was prying!" He tried to reach out to me but I was moving too fast. I just needed a few minutes alone to get myself together. The first person that I came to was Finny. He saw that I was nearly in tears and immediately got worried. "Christi. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, is there anywhere that I can just sit alone for a moment? I need to get my head back together."

He looked at me, slightly suspicious, but still very worried. "Yeah, Just come with me." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led me into a small lounge-like room off of the main room that we were in. "I'm gonna go back into the main room. It's just through that door. Just come back in when you're ready."

"Alright, thank you Finny."

He walked out and the tears started running down my face. I wish I could forget about my past. Forget about him. I have a new life now, and I'm not going to let him ruin it. I lifted my head and wiped my eyes. I found a mirror on a nearby wall, and made sure that I had wiped all of the tears away. I sat down in one of the chairs after just to give my eyes to become less red, then I would go back into the main room.

Maylene POV

I saw Christi smiling and talking to Bard. She was smoking with him and they seemed to really hit it off. It was nice to see them getting along so well. I started straightening the flower vases and got done with the 5th one before hearing a small commotion. Christi was almost running away from Bard and he was yelling after her.

"Wait, Christi! Come back! I'm sorry if I was prying!"

She went over to Finny and he led her to another room. He emerged about a minute later and we both walked over to Bard.

Finny spoke up first, he sounded almost furious. "What did you ask her! She's really upset!"

Bard looked grief stricken. "I was just asking her what her back story was. We all have them, and I was curious as to what could have happened to her for her to come work here. As soon as I said it though, it was like she shut down. Then she ran over to you, Finny. Honest! That's all I know!"

Finny seemed to accept this but he still seemed upset. "From now on, don't ask her about her past. It's apparently a bad subject, and later on when she trusts us, she'll probably tell us. Remember how long it took me to tell you guys what happened to me?"

"Yeah, but yours was horrible-"

"Maybe hers was just as bad. Look, she'll tell us if she wants us to know, okay?"

"Yeah." Bard looked up at us sadly. "I wasn't trying to make her upset. I like her." He ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't want-"

I spoke up this time, "We know you didn't Bard. We just have to give her time. The best thing would be to apologize when she comes back and then to just drop it."

He let out a sigh, "Okay. I'll do that."

"Good. Now we should just go back to what we were doing and not bring it up. Finny, I'm going to go back to organizing the flowers and you just do whatever you were doing."

His smile came back. "Okay!"

Just as I got to another of the vases, Christi came back out. Bard walked toward her and she met him in the middle of the room. He spoke to her, most likely apologizing, she spoke back to him. Then he hugged her and led her over to a pair of chairs where they sat down and continued talking. Before long they were laughing like nothing had ever happened.

Sorry this chapter is so short. I'll post another one soon to make up for it. Please R&R. Constructive criticism is welcome, but no flames please. :)